Mercurial

Chapter Two

I have only been alive for seventeen years. Not quite enough time for my words to have earned authority, but enough time for them to count. Enough time for them to be worth hearing and considering. Enough time to be valid.

Observations fall under the same rule, and one I have acutely recognized as of late is this: nothing can live up to your expectations because everything not directly under your control falls short of what you wish it to be.

I know this. It's not a new phenomenon to me, and yet every time it happens, I'm somehow caught off guard.

"Are you almost done?" Emma asks, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "Momma will be getting up soon, I bet."

My sketch started off so well. The best I'd ever done. Or so I romanticized it to be. But now my expectations, my tastes, far outweigh my talent, and it's all gone bad. The idea of waking before the rest of the house to sit in total serenity was just an illusion. Nothing in real life ever lives up to what has been previously dreamed.

The pencil flings out of my hand and skids across the table as I lean back to evaluate my work. Like a hound trained to find game, my eyes seek every wobbly line, off-centered feature, and missed shading opportunity. I spot more and more imperfections, and my heart sinks faster than a heavy rock hurdled into the pond. There are few things worse than facing something you know you could have done better with. So many things I want to add, so many things I want to fix.

But Emma's right. Momma will be getting up soon. I'm out of time.

Emma blows her nose into the bandana I keep my supplies in, and at this point, I'm too defeated to care. As a matter of fact, I'm about ready to cry with her. "Yeah, you can go now." I try to mask the shakiness in my voice.

Emma jumps up and comes to my side of the table to peer over my shoulder. Normally I'm quite comfortable sharing my work with others, but right now all I want to do is firmly shut the cover of my sketch book, closing off my work along with my vulnerability.

She stands there staring, and my skin starts to crawl. A light laugh squeaks out of my lips, "The nose is far too large, the hands look like two prizewinning potatoes, the freckles look more like pockmarks, and the hair is about as tame as an orphan's..." I ramble on about the sketch in a voice far too bright, mostly to get a laugh, or comment, or anything out of her; but the longer I stare at the awful thing, the more truth I find in my words.

After what feels like a day and a half, Emma says, "No, it's beautiful. It actually makes me look pretty. I bet I could pass for at least thirteen in that picture, don't you think? I wish I looked like that in real life."

She doesn't think the portrait is true. She doesn't recognize herself in this. If I disliked the drawing before, I'm utterly disgusted with it now.

I scribble Eleanor Harris, 23 April 1872 in the bottom right corner and stand up. "Keep it, it's a lost cause," I rip out the page from the sketchbook and wave it in her face.

For a good five seconds, Emma stands there, shock frozen on her face. Sketches stay in the sketchbook, no ifs, ands, or buts. A grin bright enough to rival the sun breaks across Emma's face, and for the first time this morning, her eyes are glimmering with their usual joy instead of tears. Before I know it, her arms are around my waist; her face pressed into my stomach. Several muffled, "Thank yous" commence, and then she dashes upstairs, portrait in hand. If I know anything about Emma, she's on her way to show Lizzie.

Emma is so happy to finally have her own sketch. Perhaps I shouldn't have criticized it so. Why must I always be so hard on myself? Why is it so very instrumental that every sketch I make turn out perfect?